Throughout Greencastle, I was frequently reminded of two great movies: The Apartment and the first Rocky.
Greencastle does not take a middle-of-the-road approach to comedy and drama. It goes beyond most comedy-dramas in both directions. There are moments of laugh-out-loud comedy which are funnier than many of the scenes in movies that have been marketed as pure comedies. There are also moments of drama more intense than those in other dramedies. That Dunbar manages to go back and forth between the two attest to his skill as a director. What he did was very similar to what Wilder did in The Apartment: he walks a tense tight-rope between laughs and sadness.
One of the wise decisions Dunbar and D.P. Jonathan Austin made was to shoot good portions of the movie in low-key lighting, which, combined with the subtle piano-based score, gave the movie a feel similar to that of Rocky.
The similarity to Rocky does not end with the atmosphere. It may be hard imagining pop culture without the character of Rocky, especially with countless sequels. But if one tries to imagine seeing Rocky for the first time in 1976, one appreciates what an original character Sly Stallone made through his writing and his acting. Koran Dunbar achieves the same with Poitier Dunning, a unique and memorable character, a tightly-wound up man who nonetheless persists in facing his fears.
Drama is easy, comedy is hard, or so it is said. Koran Dunbar has succeeded in directing both kinds of movie.
Greencastle does not take a middle-of-the-road approach to comedy and drama. It goes beyond most comedy-dramas in both directions. There are moments of laugh-out-loud comedy which are funnier than many of the scenes in movies that have been marketed as pure comedies. There are also moments of drama more intense than those in other dramedies. That Dunbar manages to go back and forth between the two attest to his skill as a director. What he did was very similar to what Wilder did in The Apartment: he walks a tense tight-rope between laughs and sadness.
One of the wise decisions Dunbar and D.P. Jonathan Austin made was to shoot good portions of the movie in low-key lighting, which, combined with the subtle piano-based score, gave the movie a feel similar to that of Rocky.
The similarity to Rocky does not end with the atmosphere. It may be hard imagining pop culture without the character of Rocky, especially with countless sequels. But if one tries to imagine seeing Rocky for the first time in 1976, one appreciates what an original character Sly Stallone made through his writing and his acting. Koran Dunbar achieves the same with Poitier Dunning, a unique and memorable character, a tightly-wound up man who nonetheless persists in facing his fears.
Drama is easy, comedy is hard, or so it is said. Koran Dunbar has succeeded in directing both kinds of movie.